As a woman and mother pursuing my doctorate in Health and Behavioral Sciences, my goal is to perform research that has tangible, positive, real-world impacts – I am personally and professionally invested in the equitable advancement of respectful, patient-centered care to improve birth outcomes.
My research focuses on the neuroactive steroid allopregnanolone, cortisol and related steroid hormones, and their relationship with maternal stress and gestational length – specifically preterm birth (<37 weeks’ gestation). Using a novel assay developed as part of my master’s thesis, I am investigating these compounds as objective stress biomarkers, which may be useful alone or in conjunction with self-reported stress and mood data. My goal is to expand the diagnostic toolbox – enhancing practitioners’ ability to identify and mitigate maternal stress resulting in improved maternal/fetal outcomes. Additionally, I am interested in the plasticity available in the index pregnancy through the highly conserved maternal-fetal-placental unit and how this plasticity allows us to reconceptualize stress in pregnancy.
These varying perspectives allow me to triangulate my research concerning maternal stress and preterm birth within three distinct – yet overlapping – frames: 1) a clinical/translational focus on biomarker identification, 2) an evolutionary and developmental biology focus on the highly conserved biological mechanisms that modulate both stress and the timing of birth, and 3) a reproductive justice perspective that arises out of a pressing need to acknowledge the social patterning of maternal stress and preterm birth and to name racism, not race, as an urgent medical risk factor.